Does that absolve him of the responsibility to try? (That's a serious question, not a sarcastic one).
No.
A public repentance is a means for a sinner to take responsibility for his sin.
God, being God, absolves a sinner who repents of his sin. Forgiveness is his divine nature.
It doesn't mean people will. People are very good at holding each other to their sins.
It is understandable why too. Sins are very destructive to both the sinner and the one sinned against
Public repentance of sins were at one time the norm for the early church, with the sinner repenting and the whole congregation forgiving, through the power of Christ.
For a variety of reasons I suppose, the Catholic Church began to hear sinners repent privately, with the sinner confessing, and the priest absolving through the power of Christ.
I imagine a lot of the reason for that change in procedure is that human forgiveness is seldom complete, and what becomes part of the public common knowledge is able to feed the gossip mills for years and years and years.
Sexual sin in particular ruins the reputations of all involved, even the innocent. Our sexual imaginations are powerful forces of nature. It becomes nearly impossible to know something sexual about somebody else and not think of it whenever we see their lips move.
God gave us the privacy of clothes as his first act of mercy towards us. Such is the nature of the human consciousness after the fall, and our nakedness hits us like a ton of bricks.
It has been very convenient too for churches to cover-up all improprieties, all in the name of mercy, sincere or not.
But once a sexual sin becomes common knowledge, maybe that is a good time for a public repentance.
God at least forgives, even if people incapable of forgiveness will forever be seeing this man in their minds eye in a sexual act with a nubile seventeen year old.
